


Left Unsaid

by MessOfCurls



Series: Wax and Wane [17]
Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Break Up, Climbing Class, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Roleplay Logs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-07
Updated: 2016-11-07
Packaged: 2018-08-29 18:26:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8500462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MessOfCurls/pseuds/MessOfCurls
Summary: The message was simple enough. Nothing flowery, no clichés; sent just as Chris was leaving class, giving him little time to process it.  Quad. 10 mins. Josh didn’t want him to be prepared. It would be easier if he wasn’t.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Song recs:  
> Bloodflood - Alt J  
> Nobody's Fault But My Own - Beck

Bitten-down fingernails picked at the cuff of Josh’s sleeve while he stared blankly at the dreary day around him, taking little in. His mind was elsewhere; running through his lines, skirting around unwelcome thoughts and feelings. Never still, not for long.

He’d survived his ‘time away’, as his parents so delicately put it - had gone in broken and come out stitched back up. Thirty days and nights passed by in an agonizingly slow blur of repetition as they attempted to straighten him out; washing the stains and ironing out the creases like dirty laundry. Thirty days alone but never actually alone; always under observation. Then, all too suddenly, he was out in the big wide world again - all his delicate pieces held together, back in place. Not _quite_ as good as new, but close enough to keep them from worrying too much. That’s what mattered.

Summer back home was the hardest. No family vacation this year. Long evenings filled the empty rooms with too much light. People on the streets were dressed in shorts and dresses, all smiles and sunglasses - so carefree, so easy. The whole world was moving on without him, without _them_ , like nobody even knew. Like it had never even happened.

Returning to college to retake his freshman year seemed like the logical thing to do, or maybe it was simply the expected route for him. A slight hitch in the scheduled itinerary and back to business as usual, following the path his life should take. He didn’t object. What else was he supposed to do?

He went through the motions. Get up, get dressed, take the pills, go to college, read the book, eat the food, go to sleep. Over and over and over, like any of it actually mattered anymore.

And it worked, for a while.

But he was still there, or part of him was - back there amid snow-capped peaks. Back there in the cold dark. Part of him always would be. He knew that now.

More therapy: a face-to-face session and two follow ups over the phone per week. More pills: higher doses added to his daily scrip, popping them like candy. Talking it out and numbing it all and sympathetic smiles and nods that did little.

He'd tried, he really had. But it wasn’t working anymore. None of it was.

Something needed to change.

The toe of Josh’s boot tapped repeatedly against the concrete while he fidgeted, his knee juddering as the nervous tick went ignored. The quad was no different to those summer streets. Everyone was wrapped up a little warmer, but they were still happy and oblivious, paying him little attention. 

He’d waited until he was already outside before texting Chris. A small part of him feared that he could somehow be talked out of it, lured back from his course of action by soothing words, warm arms and blankets, perhaps. Outside, he felt better. With the slight breeze chilling his skin, everything was clearer.

He hadn’t brought much to college with him this time around. The gory posters that decorated his wall the previous year had gone. The photos pinned to the notice board above his desk, too. Just clothes, textbooks and his laptop, that was it. Functional. Minimal. Everything fit neatly into the case beside the bench and the duffel bag slumped by his feet.

The message was simple enough. Nothing flowery, no clichés; sent just as Chris was leaving class, giving him little time to process it.

_Quad. 10 mins._

Josh didn’t want him to be prepared. It would be easier if he wasn’t.

“Your phone’s buzzin’ McKinley.” A hand slapping down upon the back of his head accompanied the voice of a kid who sat three rows in front of him during his last lecture of the day. Him, and the girl holding his hand shared a chuckle when Chris nearly fell off of the uncomfortable regulation chair into which he’d been slumped for the past two hours. A nap certainly hadn’t been on the cards, despite how this particular lecturer’s voice always seemed to tap into those parts of his brain which had been frazzled by a brutal week of classes and assignments - the overwhelming majority of him which just wanted food, bed, and maybe a couple of Tylenol. 

Sporting some rather spectacular bed-head, which he promptly disguised beneath a beanie which used to belong to his other half, a weary, ‘Yeah, thanks man.’ warbled in the wake of the retreating students. As the last of them trickled out, he piled his books into a worn out shoulder bag, and finally chanced a look at the phone where it’d stopped making a miniature racket against the surface of his desk. 

_Quad. 10 mins._

Hardly eloquent, but it got the point across in the same way most of Josh’s communications had since his hush hush return to school life. In the time which had passed, an academic year ticked over, and in spite of his bitter protests, leaving one side of a two person room free for someone whose condition felt like it might be sinking towards a perpetual ‘pending’, hadn’t been possible. Sure, the guy he was sharing with wasn’t any trouble - far more bookish and dedicated than Chris had deemed necessary to pass his own courses - but he wasn’t, and never would be the person who _should’ve_ been occupying that space. 

And so he’d tried to tread that fine line between being there - as he’d always been, for his boyfriend, and coddling him in the kinds of ways Josh tried not to show he loathed. Reassurance was shown in age old gestures - snack foods left in seven eleven carriers upon the handle to Josh’s room, decorated with post-its in all their in-joke, ugly doodle glories - text messages relating the latest weirdness to cross his path - dropping everything whenever those messages were returned. Even now, a body upon automatic took him to where Josh needed him to be. It wasn’t until twenty feet, became ten, and five, and four, and--- 

_Something’s wrong._

Might as well have been a siren blaring, or a neon sign amidst the grey skies. From the hunch of his shoulders, to the way his eyes never quite settled upon anything, giving little reaction during Chris’ initial, amiable trundling over to his position - all of it added up to an equation Chris didn’t want to solve. 

Steps shy, he paused, and sat down without their customary signals of affection - toned down because J had never been too hot for public makings out, but there nonetheless if one happened to look closely enough. In their place, a horrible, nauseating concern sat heavy in Chris’ gut, and didn’t fail to make its presence known in his expression. 

“Hey I got your message. I mean, uh---of course I did, or I’d have to be psychic, heh…” 

A second passed before Josh even registered that the blonde who'd been in his thoughts all morning was actually beside him. He flashed a smile - the same thin gesture of normality he'd found easier to pull out of the bag as the days passed, gracing his lips instinctively before it vanished just as quickly as it came. "Hey..."

He pulled himself back from wandering thoughts to the present. To the very real present that was looming over him; that he'd been thinking about ever since the idea had come to him the day before, his mind made up. He'd planned it out and rehearsed it in his head and it had seemed so simple. Painful, sure. But simple enough. 

"You uh..."

Now that they were both there, his thought-out lines deserted him.

Maybe it wasn't so simple after all.

His breath faintly misted the air as he exhaled, struggling to remember before giving up entirely. He'd promised himself not to dress it up too much. Chris deserved more than that. He deserved more than any of this--

"I'm going," he said abruptly, meeting Chris' eyes before looking down at the bag by his feet. "Home," he clarified.

That was a lie, but it sounded a lot better than the truth. Home was where his mother cried when she thought he couldn't hear. Home was the place his father hardly returned to these days, preoccupied with other distractions. Home was empty bedrooms next to his, untouched since...

...Home wasn't an option anymore.

“....home, you’re, what?” Chris made a conscious effort to wipe what he thought was an exceedingly dumbfounded expression off of his face. After all, out of everyone he knew that Josh’s recovery periods didn’t always follow a constant upwards trajectory. Given the circumstances it was little wonder his thoughts weren’t centering around the loom of impending coursework, and group assignments. No one could, or would blame him for needing more than the mandatory sentence of healing his doctors deemed necessary - least of all the worried looking man sitting next to him. 

With a soft huff of breath, an expelling of all the stupid things he might’ve said which wouldn’t help Josh one iota, Chris tried to smile back at him without looking like he knew just how lonely being here alone was going to be. This wasn’t about him - it hadn’t been since that awful night, and it didn’t need to be. Time away from the pressures of studying, in the company of parents who loved him dearly, that was what Josh clearly wanted for himself. 

Besides, he was only a Skype conversation away, and the Washingtons had never said no to letting him take up one of their numerous houses’ spare rooms when necessary. Heck, he’d been a permanent fixture in their earlier years, and the very same had gone for whenever Josh wanted to sleepover. 

“Okay, not gonna lie this is kinda sudden, and I’m gonna miss you like whoa, but if there’s anything I can do….?” And there it was - a gentle kind of expectation between them - nothing melodramatic, and certainly not a thought spared for his own feelings - as miserable as he was valiantly trying not to look, Chris had once again placed the needs of his boyfriend above everything else. It was just how their relationship worked, and had done in all its forms since childhood. He didn’t know anything else. Still smiling ever so slightly, warm fingers coaxed Josh’s hand away from where he hadn’t even noticed he’d been biting down upon the side of one ragged looking nail. 

“I got you, okay? So, just let me know if you need anything….from me, from school.” 

Josh let his hand settle there, held within Chris' own before he remembered himself; reminded of the task at hand by the unpleasant pang in his chest. Darting eyes glanced away as he loosed himself from Chris' gentle grip, his fingers retreating to the safety of his own lap.

"No... no, you _don't_... you don't get it?"

He hated how uncertain he sounded. But he _was_ certain. He'd told himself enough times how certain he was and how this was the best thing to do; for him, for Chris. It was the _only_ thing to do.

...Right?

Right.

"...You _don't_ have me. Man, I-- I'm going."

For someone who spent most of their time talking about their feelings, he was doing a pretty shitty job of saying much of anything.

"We... I can't... do this anymore, okay? I'm going and..."

His throat felt thick when he swallowed and dared to meet Chris' eye.

"I'm done. With this."

The heaviness which had settled, sick and unavoidable in Chris’ stomach suddenly plummeted before rising to flutter around in his chest and the back of his throat. This meant school. This meant deadlines, and dormitories, and all the trivial worries which Josh didn’t need when he was still so raw over his sisters’ disappearance. 

_……….right?_

His hand hung in the space between them, abandoned by the fingers he’d tried to bring a little measure of warmth to only seconds ago. It wasn’t quite shaking, but something inside him sure felt like it was trying to worm its way loose. Josh looked like he’d been caught red-handed doing something awful, and it was his nervousness which coloured the air around them - leaving it thick with painful possibilities - none of which Chris wanted to give form to in his own words. So, his hand retreated, and for a while he just choked down the sum of signs which implied that ‘this’ had a lot more to do with the two of them than he wanted it to. 

The quad continued around them - clusters of students caught up in their own jovial banter, girls reapplying their lipstick between lectures, couples holding hands, lecturers weighed down by research materials - none of their circumstances, none of the incessant hum of noise did anything to cut into the leaden atmosphere Josh’s replies had brought down upon them. 

Words like eggshells, Chris trod softly enough that the quiet in his own voice shocked him, “......J...you’re gonna have to….what….what’s this about, dude?” His whole body felt braced, like he was tiptoeing somewhere far more dangerous than before. And it might just be Josh who pushed him right over the precipice this time.

Josh was right - Chris didn't get it. But that was no surprise when he could barely get his words out. It was supposed to be simple, he'd told himself it would be _simple_.

He took a breath, but it did little to quell the growing nausea in his gut or the rapid beat of his heart. He spoke slowly this time. “Look. This was just a thing that happened. And it's done now. There are… there's a lot of things going on and I just… I just don't _need_ this right now.”

Shifting on the bench, Josh tried to keep his voice steady as he pushed on. “I can't have a fresh start. With you. I can't. I can't _do_ that, okay...? We're done.”

Though the sounds of life around them went on unabated, the silence left in the wake of his words seemed deafening. Not knowing what else to say, Josh shrugged weakly.

As clichéd as it sounded, the idea that this was just some awful concoction of his subconscious decided to occur to Chris in the aftermath of Josh’s reply. That he’d wake up, brow damp, and heart thundering - with the familiar shape of his boyfriend beneath the blankets, limbs tangled up in their usual early morning sprawl - huddled together against the impending stresses of the day. A sudden burst of laughter, echoing along the cobbles at his back brought any illusion that this was a mere dream come crashing down. 

Everything felt a little too real - shock and the threat of something close to being a little broken all on his own - it all clung to his insides now. Sure, it was all too easy to say that this was Josh doing things his way all over again. A ploy to spare them further, deeper hurt in the unknown future, but the fact that he’d managed to come to these conclusions all on his own, and in such a short space of time. Those were the things which damned his theories, left them sour and redundant upon a slack tongue. The thing with J was that much of what he actually managed to say with any conviction came from a thoughtful place. He’d considered how this conversation would go, maybe even mapped it out beforehand; never thinking to take a different path. And it was that lack of context, and how off kilter it left Chris feeling which pained him almost as much as the fact that all their years together - as friends, and now, more recently, as something more - could be boiled down into a thing, a _thing_ which had happened….

Yet, he couldn’t find it in himself to be truly mad at Josh. Few ever could, even at his worst. And Chris had been the guiltiest of them all when it came to make excuses, of letting Josh off the hook because in the end everything bad that happened was outweighed in each rare smile, stupid in-joke, and quiet evening spent curled up together doing nothing. 

“........this is...you’re...you’re breaking up with me.” God, it sounded so dumb as each word dribbled out - nearly buried by the world ticking over - minimized to all his senses as Josh sat at the very centre of them. 

“.....we’re not even going to try and talk this through, are we?” No, that hadn’t ever figured into Josh’s equation - the bags stowed at his feet said as much. It was Chris’ turn to look away, sighing shakily as he ran a hand through his hair and glanced away as a rush of skateboarders swept by, cackling to each other in the highest of spirits, “.....Jesus, J….this is what you think the last ten years is worth….a...a _fucking_ text message, and five minutes to tell me that we were just a _thing_ ….which happened.” Even now, when he had almost every right to raise his voice, the blonde just sounded wounded and unsure of how angry he wanted to be - at himself for not noticing Josh edging himself to such a horrible conclusion, at Josh for going there without him. But mostly at the world - because no one, especially not J, deserved the whole heaping of shit it’d laid down upon him.

Josh gave another lacklustre shrug with hunched shoulders in reply. “What is there to talk about?”

 _Now_ he was getting it. Finally. The wounded look in Chris' eyes and the hint of something close to but not quite anger in his voice as he recounted Josh's words was proof enough of that. He’d anticipated this reaction or something close enough to it, but it didn’t mean he liked it. They’d argued before, but what friends hadn’t? Josh was usually the one to set them down that road with badly-chosen words or poorly-expressed feelings. But this was different. This wasn’t a simple misunderstanding that had gone a step too far.

Chris was regarding him in a brand new way. The familiar hurt was there - Josh had seen it before and always loathed himself for causing it - but there was a permanence to it this time. He reminded himself that it wasn’t his job to fix it or make everything better anymore. It was a strange, unpleasant thought.

 _This_ is _better. In the long run this is… this has_ got _to be a good thing._

Then why didn’t it feel like a good thing?

These days, nothing made him feel good anymore. They did the same old things together, trying to pick up where they left off, but it felt different. It felt emptier. 

Going through the motions. Always going through the motions. Even on those increasingly rare occasions they’d slept together since his return, Josh was lost. He initiated it - needing to feel close to someone, to something else - but, like everything else, it just didn’t work. His body reacted predictably; tensing and shuddering of its own accord, leaving him breathless but vacant.

An affectionate hand brushed back his hair in memory. Concerned eyes looked down at him while he caught his breath.

_“...Where did you go?”_

Blinking away the memory, he tried to gather up his scattered thoughts. 

Good. Now Chris knew where they stood. That _had_ to be a good thing. And yet, Josh couldn't help hearing Chris’ words, no matter how hard he tried to ignore them.

Ten years. More than half his life. Done. Over.

Painful nostalgia threatened to set him off balance till he clenched his fists and found his resolve. A shaky little breath through pursed lips later and he was steady. Just.

Fuck, but he wanted to hold his ha--

_No._

He took another breath and grim determination coloured his features when he finally spoke again. “I'm not your charity case anymore.”

For a moment, he felt removed from himself, like it was all happening to someone else - sharp words coming from a stranger's mouth. He had sympathy for that other person, but for some reason, he couldn't fully connect with them.

“You don't have to babysit me anymore,” he added as an afterthought, smiling bitterly.

Yes, there was that, at least.

Contrary to popular belief at the end of his almost infinitely long fuse, Chris had a breaking point. The painful recognition that Josh was picking at every sore spot he knew didn’t even exist between them was just about the most frustrating element of this entire conversation. He was constructing a wall with such meticulous care that it’s foundations must have been laid long before he began shrugging off their daily hang out sessions - using Chris’ punishing schedule, or simply his own lethargy as convenient excuses to remain in his own company. 

Brick by brick it’d been put into place all whilst thoughts of working things out - of a little damn honesty for once - which didn’t have to be wheedled out from between his lips where they’d sewn themselves shut - had fallen by the wayside. 

Since childhood the sum of things Chris had demanded off of him could be counted upon the fingers of one hand. Yet an explanation didn’t factor into the script Josh had so clearly written for this grand farewell. He didn’t owe Chris a thing, and that awful truth was shared between the two of them as boldly as if dark clouds had gathered overhead. 

Yet there was nothing explosive about the way in which the blonde leaned back, glasses turned to that same sky as he turned the words Josh was using against him so eagerly; turned them over and swallowed them down until his throat felt like it was in ribbons. 

_Charity case._

_Babysitter._

A part of him wanted to laugh at just how ridiculous either of those notions were - how he’d proved time and again that he wanted nothing in return save for contentment and health for Josh. A future for both of them. _Together_. Hell, even if Josh chose someone else, another path, whatever, it’d be worth it all just to see him living something like a normal life. But not like this. It was never supposed to end like this. 

His gaze remained tethered to a slow roll of clouds as they carried on regardless. There was little in the way of true anger in his voice, just low slung pain and bitterness which sounded as if it wasn’t even directed towards Josh any more. After a moment or two spent in the kind of deliberation which would leave him in shreds the second he turned that final corner out of sight from the figure still huddled upon a cold quad bench, Chris got to his feet, shoving both hands deep into the pockets of his usual coat. 

_I’m not gonna go on about everything I’ve done, all the times other people told me not to stand up for you. The nights I spent lying awake worrying about if you even had a future, and if I’d be a part of it. All the stuff I never even told you because you didn’t need to hear it, didn’t need it interfering with the happiness which made you light up. It made you everything I’ve always hoped you could have...could be if you just stopped blaming yourself for everything. Stuff you couldn’t even control. Stuff I did, and regretted. The good things you didn’t believe you deserved to feel or have…._

_....because none of it matters. I did it all for one reason. I didn’t even know why for so long, and sometimes it kinda scared me how much I understood I couldn’t live without you. But we’re both strong, and if you need to do this then I can’t stop you._

_Doesn’t mean I’ll stop loving you. Not ever._

_“Fuck you.”_ With that he turned, never once looking back as solid strides took him across the quad as he shouldered past surprised looking students in his effort to be anywhere else.

Sat on the bench, Josh watched Chris leave; following the painfully familiar sight of his retreating back through the clusters of students, taken farther away with each determined step until he was gone. He didn't look back. Not once. Only when he was completely lost in the crowd did Josh dare release the breath he'd been hoarding up; letting it out in a long, trembling exhale that made him feel weak and lightheaded.

Numb.

No, that wasn't true. He could feel it coming, just below the surface; screaming at him through thick glass and banging its fists with a desperate futility. It wanted him to undo it - to track Chris down and take it all back and laugh it off and forget about it - but he didn’t move; planted solidly on the bench, hopelessly inert. Chris wasn’t going to forgive or forget this time.

Cold fingers picked at his jeans, trembling slightly from more than wind-chill. When all he saw were strangers, he finally looked away.

The hurt was back again; it had only been a matter of time before it made itself known, never far away. Only, he'd been the one to put it there this time. It was there - cold and thick - clawing at his insides along with all the things he'd left unsaid.

Those nights alone in his room, bereft of his companion, had been the breeding ground of all the thoughts that had led to this. Horrible, all-too-real things that had played on his mind. He’d denied them for as long as he could, but in the silence they found their voice; speaking softly at first until they were all he could hear. They were all the things he could never tell Chris. Never. He could never explain how he somehow missed him even when he was right there beside him, or convince his former friend he’d never understand any of the things Josh analysed and picked apart in every gruelling therapy session - reliving the past again and again - no matter how hard Chris tried. How his face, once a source of comfort and reassurance, was a constant reminder of that night; the mere sight of him causing that ever present anxiety to tighten Josh's chest. How it hurt to even look at him sometimes.

_How I stopped feeling safe with you. With anyone._

And now he’d never know.

Life continued around him, as distant and unfeeling as before, when he shakily got to his feet. His legs were stiff. Heavy. A group of girls walked by, one of them throwing him a soft smile, but it went ignored. The world hadn’t ended, he knew that. At least, not today. The clock had stopped for him a long time ago in the dead of night. Everything after that… none of it mattered anymore. 

Stooping down, he threw the bag strap over his shoulder and grabbed the handle of the case beside him. Leaving the bench behind, Josh walked away in the opposite direction to the blonde’s abrupt exit.

He deserved Chris’ anger; there was no question about it. It was simple, just like he'd planned. There was no other way it could have gone.

_This is what you wanted._

Then why did it hurt so much?

He swallowed it down, barely seeing the world passing him by through the beginnings of treacherous tears, too lost in thought as he left the quad, dragging the case behind him till he reached an overflowing trashcan. The case fit neatly beside it. They were things. Just things. He didn’t need them anymore.

It was a fresh start. But not for him. He’d done this for Chris. Maybe he couldn’t see that, but he had. Perhaps one day he’d know that, maybe even thank him for it, though that seemed hard to fully believe right then.

The seed of an idea had already taken root, though it hadn’t been fully realised yet; born of a dark place that grew darker every day. Going through the motions. All he had to do was go through the motions. Just one more time.

With nowhere to go, he walked on.

**Author's Note:**

> Another RP log. As usual, I wrote Josh and my partner wrote Chris.


End file.
